Chapter 18: Rising Tension
The three figures stood with a start, bowed once more and then left the audience chamber. Once they were gone, Wotan turned to his two female prisoners. Katrina sat at the side of the podium, while Phantasia was no longer confined to a magic circle – Wotan knew she wouldn’t attempt escape while Katrina was still in his custody.
“I often wonder what would happen to those three if I were ‘removed’,” he said, trying to put on the appearance of a kindly father with a faux-warm smile, “Their faith in the doctrine comes more from fear than anything. If they were at any other cathedral, they wouldn’t have progressed beyond the bottom ranks,”
Phantasia was still confused by this strange man. His methods and beliefs went against everything she stood for, but there was something about him, just a tiny shard in the grey stone, that caught her attention. She couldn’t read emotions like Fire faeries could, so she couldn’t tell if it was real concern or even guilt over his actions, but what she could tell was that there was no malice. She remembered what Queen Thetis had told her, and what had occurred to her the very first time she met the Bishop:
The world only tells you what the world wants you to know.
And Wotan didn’t want anyone to know anything.
“So, you’re even using your closest aides? Is there anyone who isn’t a pawn to you?” she goaded, hoping to lure out just a slither of emotion or body language that might provide a clue to his motives.
“Everyone is just another piece to those above them,” he said with a matter-of-fact tone, “That is simply the nature of the world. I would have thought someone like you might understand that. I am a tool of the Patriarchs, just as you are a tool of your elders,”
“I’m nobody’s tool,” she said, “And I won’t let my friends be used either!”
Wotan chuckled to himself. “You’re more a tool than you realise,” he said, “The best pawn is the piece that doesn’t realise it. That applies to your friends, too. How many of them realise what the training they’ve been given is really for? That they have infiltrated this place should prove to you enough that they are being used!”
“They’re here because they want to save their friends,” snapped Phantasia, proud their actions.
“And that just helps things to work in my favour,” said Wotan, as if to challenge her pride, “It’s because of those bonds that these children are pushing themselves so hard to succeed. If I’d just done what doctrine suggests and eradicated anyone suspected of heresy, we wouldn’t be in this position. Those girls would be dead, as would all those who attempted to stand against us.”
This was what puzzled Phantasia the most. Everywhere around her she could feel the lingering anger of Godhand and its hateful doctrine – which was built around punishing those with beliefs that threatened Godhand’s authority – and yet Bishop Wotan, leader of Godhand in Torsten, was prepared to defy his own teachings. But to what ends? What could he possibly have to gain from manipulating teenagers? By taking advantage of and abusing their threads of friendship?
“You’re sickening,” she growled.
Wotan dismissed her sentiment with a wave of his hand. “Aren’t you tired of talking like that yet? You’ll understand what all this is about soon enough,”
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“proud their actions” = “proud of their actions”